By Valerie Volcovici

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Two Trump nominees to lead the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s deregulatory efforts faced questions at their Senate confirmation on Wednesday about the agency’s plans to gut the basis for greenhouse gas emission rules.

At issue is whether the agency intends to unwind the 2009 “endangerment finding”, which cleared a path for regulating greenhouse gases under the U.S. Clean Air Act and formed the basis for numerous EPA climate rules, including on power plants and vehicle tailpipe emissions.

EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin has recommended attempting to reverse the finding to the White House, according to two sources familiar with the matter. The EPA confirmed there was a recommendation, but did not disclose its details.

The Senate environment committee on Wednesday weighed the confirmation of Aaron Szabo to be the EPA’s assistant administrator for Air and Radiation and David Fotouhi to be deputy administrator - two key roles that would lead any efforts to unwind the endangerment finding.

When Fotouhi served as EPA general counsel during the first Trump administration, the agency did not pursue reversal of the endangerment finding amid industry pushback.

Ranking member of the Senate panel Senator Sheldon Whitehouse pressed Szabo on his role advising Project 2025, a conservative policy blueprint that has influenced some of Trump’s policies and whether he would implement those recommendations at EPA. Project 2025 called for undoing the endangerment finding.

"I believe in an open door policy with respect to ideas from all potential stakeholders, whether they be Conservative or Democratic," Szabo said. "I am open to any group’s ideas."

CLIMATE FOCUS

Democratic senators pressed the two nominees to clearly state their positions about the impact of greenhouse gas emissions on the atmosphere and the role fossil fuels play in exacerbating climate change.

Szabo declined to say whether fossil fuels exacerbate climate change, and pushed back against insinuations that his previous work as a lobbyist for fossil fuel companies affects his judgment.

California Senator Adam Schiff questioned Szabo on whether the EPA should reduce greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels, and said Szabo was having "difficulty" giving a plain answer.

"Does the oil industry exert too great an influence on our policy dealing with climate change such that you can’t answer that question?" he asked.

"No," responded Szabo, "and I am curious if you are insinuating that I’m somehow under the influence of the oil and gas industry."

Szabo also did not answer about whether climate change had exacerbated California’s wildfires, saying "there are many reasons as to why the wildfires occurred in and of themselves," he said.

The Supreme Court ruled in a 2007 case, Massachusetts v. EPA, that greenhouse gases are air pollutants covered by the Clean Air Act and that EPA must issue a finding that greenhouse gases in the atmosphere endanger public health and the environment.

The EPA under former President Barack Obama finalized the finding in 2009, and the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act – former President Joe Biden’s signature climate law - codified language deeming greenhouse gases are air pollutants.

The Edison Electric Institute, a utility trade group, declined to comment on potential plans to roll back the endangerment finding but referred Reuters to a 2022 legal brief in which it said that the industry has "come to rely on EPA’s authority" to regulate greenhouse gases.

The Alliance For Automotive Innovation said its members have not yet weighed in on whether the endangerment finding should be reversed, spokesperson Brian Weiss said.

Zeldin, a former New York Congressman, said in his Senate confirmation hearing that the endangerment finding gives EPA authority to regulate greenhouse gases, but that the agency isn’t obligated to do so.